Display Me in the Museum’s Secret Room

Two poems by Katherine Indermaur

Display Me in the Museum’s Secret Room

Museum

in the back of the museum is the oldest room
the door is always shut but unlocked
when you go in no one will stop you
no one else is ever inside

the ceilings are low    dark
hushed   still air

in the room 
a dozen glass boxes 
atop a dozen black velvet pedestals
inside each glass box 
a specimen of fossilized light

you step closer to the fossils
the room is darker    colder

the room itself accommodates no future
the room’s only time is already past
the room is ending ending ending ending
       andyou      andthelight

andthere are no labels 
or titles or descriptions to read
andthere are no names     only
the velvet andthe glass 
andthe fossils of light perspiring
their memory of burning and

you
        the memory you’ve already lit


Pregnancy Poem

I am two prophets / I am the space between bones / melted as cheese 
/ I am more / but less individual / I am not sorry enough / with my 
cupped hands / I am a bucket everyone asks / is that a bucket / I am 
sick with questions / I am moonstupid / I am water and mineral / and 
mucus and the angriest hair / I am more wounded than ever / I am 
giant sadness / I am a raw planet / I am a swollen arrow / I worry the 
air

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